Contents

History

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Beginning of the
airfield

At the outset of the Great War, the Isle of Thanet was equipped with a small
and precarious landing strip for aircraft at St Mildreds Bay, Westgate, on top of the chalk
cliffs, at the foot of which was a promenade which had been used
for seaplane operations.

The landing grounds atop the cliff soon became the scene of
several accidents, with at least one plane seen to fail to stop
before the end of the cliffs and tumble into the sea, which for the
fortunate pilot had been on its inward tide.

In the winter of 1915-1916 these early aircraft first began to
use the open farmlands at Manston as a site for emergency landings.
Thus was soon established the Admiralty Aerodrome at Manston. It was not
long after this that the training school, set up originally to
instruct pilots in the use of the new Handley Page
bombers, was established, and so by the close of 1916 there were
already two distinct units stationed at Manston, the Operational
War Flight Command and the Handley Page Training School.

Its location near the Kent coast gave Manston some advantages
over the other previously established aerodromes and regular
additions in men and machinery were soon made, particularly, in
these early days, from Detling. By 1917 the Royal Flying
Corps was well established and taking an active part in the
defence of England.

At a time when Zeppelin
raids were bringing the war directly to English civilians, daylight
bombing raids by German 'Gotha' Bombers, a twin engined biplane, would have been
considerably more effective were it not for the RFC's presence at
Manston.

The German air raids had lasted for thirteen weeks, the last
being on 22 August 1917. On this occasion, of the 15 bombers that
set out for England five did not reach the Kent coast, and the
'spirited' intervention from Manston based fighters prevented those
remaining from flying further west, three being destroyed outright
and the remaining seven returning to Germany with dead and wounded
on board.

Shortly after such formation raids and in consequence the
Cabinet recommended the creation of a separate Air Ministry. The RAF
was officially formed on 1 April 1918.

An item of some interest and great curiosity relating to the
inter-war history of Manston and its personnel, is one of the long
list of inspired rescues off the Thanet coast. A link between the airfield and
the Goodwin
Sands is revealed in the pages of: The History of R.A.F
Manston by Flt. Lt. Rocky Stockman RAF, and is told by Wing
Commander Bryson who recalled an adventure at sea involving the high speed
launches stationed at Ramsgate Harbour in 1936 for duty with the no.
48 (gr) Squadron.

He reports: "we had two of these launches, equipped with old
aero engines by a firm in Cowes - they had never run for more than
15 minutes without conking out. One afternoon the Royal Temple
Yacht Club had a race from Ramsgate. A squall blew up and the
yachts ran aground on the treacherous quicksands. With trepidation
I ordered out the two high speed rescue launches, which,
miraculously, managed to keep going and rescued the boats - as if
old Culmer White had been watching over them!"

World War
II

A Luftwaffe aerial
photograph of RAF Manston at the outbreak of war in 1939 when it
was still an all-grass
airfield

In World War
II, during an eventful Battle of Britain, Manston was
heavily bombed and airfield buildings destroyed. This caused
dispersal of many of the staff to surrounding housing. For example,
WAAFs (members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force) stationed at
Manston were billeted at the nearby Ursuline Convent in Westgate on
Sea. Barnes
Wallis used the base to test his bouncing bomb on the coast at
nearby Reculver prior to
the Dambusters raid. [1] A prototype is
on public display at the Spitfire & Hurricane Museum. Hawker Typhoon
attack aircraft were based there later in the war, and also the
first Meteor
jet squadron of the RAF. It was used as a departure point for
airborne forces in Operation Market Garden. It was
one of the few airfields installed with the Fog
Investigation Dispersal Organisation (FIDO) system designed to
remove fog from airfields by burning
it off with petrol. Being close to the front-line and
having a long and broad runway (currently listed as 2,752 metres x
61 metres) the airfield became something of a magnet for badly
damaged aeroplanes that had suffered from ground fire, collisions,
or air attack but retained a degree of airworthiness. The airfield
became something of a "graveyard" for heavy bombers and no doubt
the less-damaged portions of aircraft landing or otherwise arriving
here sometimes provided spare parts for other allied aircraft in
need of repair. The museums on site display some startling aerial
views dating from this era and the post-war years. Along with Carnaby and Woodbridge,
Manston was available as an east coast emergency landing ground for
bomber crews.

USAF use

USAF Boeing B-47E-50-LM (S/N 52-3363) in flight.

Republic F-84E-1-RE Thunderjets of the 512th Fighter-Bomber
Squadron. Serial 49-2066 is in the foreground.

North American F-86D-45-NA Sabre Serial 52-4063 of the 513th
Fighter Interceptor Squadron

In the early 1950s, SAC's backbone bombers were the Convair B-36 and
Boeing B-47
Stratojet. To support this strategy, the SAC 7th Air
Division was established in May 1951. At the time, Manston had
only partially recovered from the ravages of World War II. There
were still makeshift bomb shelters, i.e. trenches with tin roofs,
and many large circles of lush green grass where Luftwaffe bombs had
cratered the runway. The RAF control tower overlooked a bizarre
hilltop runway, which was an extraordinary 750 feet wide and 9000
feet long. The runway had a 'crown' that was high enough that
planes on opposite sides of the runway were largely hidden from
each other. The 7th AD expanded Manston by expanding the take-off
and landing runways, building concrete bunkers suitable for nuclear
weapons and upgrading the support facilities for long-term use.

By the summer of 1953, the 7th AD began a series of temporary
deployments of B-47 and B-36 wings from the United States to the
United Kingdom. These deployments generally involved about 45
aircraft, together with about 20 KC-97 Stratotankers which were maintained
at the English bases for 90 days. At the end of the Temporary Duty
(TDY), they were relieved by another SAC wing that was generally
stationed at a different airfield. These deployments continued
until 1955 when SAC shifted its rotational deployments to RAF Fairford and
Manston was turned over to the United States Air Forces
in Europe.

In July 1951 SAC deployed the 12th Fighter-Escort
Wing to Manston to provide fighter escort for its
rotational bombardment wings. The 12th, however, only remained at
Manston until 30 November when it was replaced by the 123d
Fighter-Bomber Wing, with the 12th being transferred to Japan for combat duty during the Korean War.

The 123d was an umbrella wing that was formed from several Air National
Guard squadrons activated for Federal service during the Korean
War. This wing was activated at Manston with three ANG fighter
squadrons:

The 123d utilized the F-84E "Thunderjets" left behind by the
12th FEW and continued the same mission of fighter escort of SAC's
bombers.

In July 1952 the Air National Guard squadrons were returned to
State control, and USAFE assumed the fighter escort role. In
its place, the 406th Fighter-Bomber Wing was
activated in place at Manston with the following squadrons
assigned:

Initially, the 406th utilized the existing F-84Es, however in
August 1953, the F-86F "Saber" began to arrive to replace them.

A change of mission for the 406th in April 1954 from
fighter-bomber to fighter-interceptor came with a change of
equipment. The F-86D Sabre interceptor began to arrive and
the F-86F's were transferred to other USAFE squadrons and NATO
countries. In addition, the 512th FBS was transferred to Soesterberg Air Base, Netherlands with their
F-86Fs.

In June F-86D's arrived from CONUS to equip the 87th
Fighter-Interceptor Squadron which was transferred to the
406th from the 81st FBW assigned to RAF Shepherds Grove. The 87th FIS,
however, physically remained at Shepherds Grove, but was under the
organizational command of the 406th at Manston. In September 1955,
the 87th was redesignated the 512th FIS.

On 15 May 1958 the 406th was deactivated in place, with its
three air defense squadrons being assigned to continental Europe
under the 86th Air Division (Defense) at Ramstein Air
BaseWest
Germany. The squadrons were transferred to the following
bases:

The F-86D's were eventually withdrawn from Europe in 1961, and
the 512th, 513th and 514th were deactivated.

After the transfer of the USAFE interceptors at Marston the base
was returned to the RAF control.

Return to RAF
use

With the USAF's withdrawal from Manston, the airfield became a
joint civilian and RAF airport from 1960 and was thence employed
for occasional package tour and cargo flights, alongside its
continuing role as an RAF base. The Air Cadets used the northern
side of the airfield as a gliding site, and 1
Air Experience Flight flying De Havilland
Chipmunks was also based there. Thanks to its broad long
runway, (built during World War II, along with Woodbridge's, to
allow returning damaged bombers a longer than usual runway to land
on) Manston was designated as one of the UK's MEDAs (Master
Emergency Diversion Airfield) for emergency military and civilian
landings. Others included Greenham Common, Aldergrove and Macrihanish

For a number of years, the base operated as a Master Diversion
Airfield. The system consisted of a 'foam carpet' crash landing
system, where two tractors would pull tankers laying a metre thick
layer of foam over a strip of runway, for aircraft with landing
gear problems.[1]

From 1989 Manston became styled as Kent International
Airport, and a new terminal was officially opened that
year by the Duchess of York. It is allegedly
listed by NASA, although never
used, as an emergency diversionary landing strip for the space shuttle programme.

Closure of
the Base

In 1996, Manston's satellite station RAF Ash, was closed, and in 1999, it was
decided to close the RAF Manston base.

The MOD decided to keep the central fire training school (CTE)
facility open, and almost the entirety of the 'domestic' side of
the base became FSCTE Manston (for Fire Service Central
Training Establishment).